COMMENT It is atrocious for Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Khalid Abu Bakar to even suggest that protection of whistleblowers is contingent on them not revealing what they know to the media.

In short, please whistle quietly! Whistles, which are meant to be screeching loud and attention-grabbing, should for Khalid now be turned into a soft piece of music.

Khalid is either being mischievous to make such a suggestion or he is not qualified to be the top cop in the country.

In a society where the government, including the police, is prone to sweep the dirt under the carpet, the media serves as a fourth pillar.

Until an issue is exposed in the media, nothing gets the attention of the top people. The media is the only best channel for a whistleblower, so that proper attention is given to the crime and to ensure that the criminals are finally caught; albeit in some cases, like the 1MDB, it is taking a little longer.

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, who has been implicated in the 1MDB scandal, is hanging on to his office at the expense of the party that he represents. The sentiments of the people are no longer with him and the media is unlikely to let him go, especially when so much evidence is pointing in his direction.

According to Eric Paulsen, executive director of Lawyers for Liberty (LFL), the Whistleblowers Protection Act (WPA) is a bane to the actual purpose of the Act.

“The WPA is clearly not a proper whistleblower protection law enacted to serve public interest nor to combat corruption,” Paulsen is quoted as saying .

If this is the case, the IGP should recommend to the Attorney-General’s Chambers to strengthen the WPA. This is my constructive criticism to Khalid and his men.

Khalid has to realise that members of the public, including those in Umno such as Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and others that I predict will begin their attack on Najib, are no longer in a mood for all sorts of threats and intimidations.

By suggesting that the whistleblower cannot use media channels, which is akin to saying that in matters that are of public interest, such as the 1MDB, is the IGP in cahoot with or is he protecting the parties that have squandered the nation’s wealth?

Prior to the media expose by The Edge and others like Sarawak Report and The Wall Street Journal ( WSJ ), were there any arrests made?

Bank Negara, for example, knew about the RM2 million transaction, but did it do anything about it? Or, was everyone too happily laughing all the way to the bank, when the whistleblower merely whistled quietly?

Get to bottom of the crime

The IGP, as one of the key people in the 1MDB special task force, owes it to the people to get to the bottom of the 1MDB scandal, which involves a humongous amount of the nation’s coffers.

If Khalid fails to nab the people found to have squandered the money, especially those who have disappeared, then he has a lot to answer for. He has all the time in the world to go after some opposition leaders but is he now saying that the police cannot detect the whereabouts of the criminals?

I am wondering why the Immigration Department, for example, has barred several opposition leaders from travelling overseas, but the scoundrels are not banned from overseas travel.

With the 1MDB, we are dealing with borrowed money, for which the Malaysian government has given guarantees. Even former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad is not amused with the way that Najib has explained himself.

Being one of the fiercest critics of the 1MDB fiasco, Mahathir has also used the media in his attempt to remove Najib from office. Was his blog shut down? If not, why not?

Will the IGP now say that Mahathir will not get police protection, simply because he used the media to help him with his mission?

In my opinion, the IGP should step down for making such a statement and allow a more sensible police officer to take over his office. We cannot afford to have IGPs making statements that continue to drive us up the wall.

Corruption is our major concern

Corruption has become worse that today, even the foreigners living in our midst do not feel safe to go out. Just ask any of them, and they will not hesitate to tell you that they are victims of a corrupt police force. This should be the major concern of the IGP and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).

I have personally contacted the MACC as well as minister in charge of integrity Paul Low regarding the modus operandi of the local police, and how they would stop some foreigners to check on their passports, doubling up as immigration officers instead of going on crime patrols.

If one of these foreigners fails to hold a valid permit, hell breaks loose for them, who then have to find enough money to pay off the policemen. This is happening on the ground.

The IGP does not need to act as though he is not aware of this. Call it grapevine or whatever, the IGP should instead focus his attention to investigate his own force and weed out the corrupt ones.

All that he, as the country’s top cop needs to do, is to send his most trusted men to talk to foreigners in this country to see if they have been approached by some rogue police officers who would confiscate every ringgit out of the foreigners. He would earn the praise if he steps up the ‘cleaning up’ campaign within the force.

As I suggested to Low and the MACC, it is not difficult for the police or the MACC to set up traps for their own men when they go on patrol. If the police cannot protect the whistleblowers or the foreigners, how can they now expect to get the cooperation of the general public?

Even in this article, I am not going specific into cases where I had to personally confront the rogue police. I choose not to be a whisteblower. Even if I do, it is done ‘vaguely’ so that no one or two cops are implicated, but the entire force being monitored to stop the rot.

The IGP should also know that Malaysians are by and large still very gentle in the way we treat corrupt politicians and civil servants. In Ukraine, for example, it was reported that rightists have thrown several corrupt politicians into rubbish bins in an anti-corruption campaign known as the ‘trash bucket challenge’.

As a fellow Malaysian, Khalid should know that each of us has a duty to express our concern over the level of corruption plaguing the entire government machinery. He should not threaten the whistleblowers who go to the media that they will not be protected under the constitution.  

STEPHEN NG is an ordinary citizen with an avid interest in following political developments in the country since 2008.